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Billie just cries.
For a while.
When she finally gets herself out of the tub, she swaps it for the toilet and just sits on the lid, hugging a towel. Fingers pruned from the water, she checks her cell again—nothing from Gigi. Nothing from Preston.
And she can’t call Gigi, not from her cell at least, since she has no credit.
So once she’s dressed in the shorts and tank top, she stops off at the landline phone in the hall. A quick dial of a number she knows by heart, and it rings out. The voicemail box is full.
She hangs up.
Tries again. Nothing.
Then she tries the landline.
Just like the cell, it rings out. Goes to the answering machine.
Billie hangs up with a sigh.
If she’s not answering either phone, she must already be on her way.
Her freshly bleached her is coated in a leave-in conditioner, then wrapped up in a towel when she sneaks back into the bedroom.
It’s dark and quiet in the room, now. All the girls are crammed inside, the TV is off, and Carmine is snoring. Billie can’t see her, exactly, but she’s heard her snore enough to recognize it. Tonya has more of a Darth-Vadar-Deep-Breathing sort of thing going on. Unlucky for Grace, she’s stuck on the bed with them.
Billie creeps down the side of the bed to the air mattress on the floor. She slips under the covers, feeling the weight of her day’s intake of booze weighing her down.
She drapes her arm over Kate’s waist and cuddles up to her spine.
Kate’s tired voice is a murmur, “How’s it look?”
“Alright.” A bit yellow, but nothing that can’t be fixed with the toner she has at home in the trailer.
Kate’s hand finds hers, then squeezes. “Did you call Gigi?”
“She didn’t answer. She’ll be drivin’, on her way.”
“Good.”
Billie doesn’t know who falls asleep first. Or when she did.
She only knows that, sometime in the night, she stirs awake to the sound of someone stepping softly into the room.
Gigi.
No energy to turn over. Can only part her bleary eyes.
Bedroom room is ajar, just as Billie left it. Gigi’s slipping in through the gap, careful not to wake anyone. In the dark, she looks like a tall slender shadow.
Satisfied, Billie shuts her eyes.
Sleep calls to her.
And she so quickly drifts back to sleep.
14
Hair of the dog.
